2012-02-21 - to Little Halls Pond Cay, Rocky Dundas Cay, Cambridge Cay


Is was a very busy day today.  We woke up to a relatively calm anchorage this morning.  Connor really wanted to head to shore to see the pigs once more.  I jumped in the dinghy with him and we headed to 'pig beach'.  As we approached, the pigs were not to be seen.  But then, as the dinghy neared the beach, out came three big sows - at a fast trot and heading our way.  I had to abandon the approach as you really need  to watch them as they could jump in or on the dinghy and create holes.  So, it took about 3-5 minutes to finally attempt a landing.  They slowly approached us and Connor got to get  near and pet them.  I approached one of the girls and she lunged at me a bit and grunted.  No problem.  I will keep my distance.  Connor got his fill and we headed back.  One thing that we observed is that the pigs would stay very
still and stare at shells on the beach.  What I gathered was they were watching for hermit crabs moving - presumably for food.  It was interested to witness them changing their behaviours from their previous domestic existence.  So, we pulled anchor and made a short hop to Little Halls Pond Cay.  This, I understand, is Johnny Depp's Island.  He had pirate signs on the beach that said, 'restricted access'.  Although it would have been somewhat of an attraction to see Mr. Depp - the main reason we were there was to snorkle the sea aquarium at O'Brians Cay.  So, we did and it
"what's that shadow beyond the mooring ball?"....look below....
was marvelous.  I stayed with Dylan in the dingy for the first half.  The water was so clear that we didn't need to use his lookie bucket.  The fish, mostly Sergeant majors, swarmed the dinghy looking for snacks.  We did have a few for them and even  put in his toes for them to nibble.  He loved that.  Connor was searching for some smaller obscure corals and reef inhabitants that he had seen in his reef book.  He noticed a few Christmas Trees about 10 feet down and dove right down to show me.  He is really getting good at free diving.  As we were finishing up snorkeling we noticed, not too far away from where we were sand bars in between two cays that were forming due to low tide.  We approached and Connor excused himself from the dinghy and marooned himself on one of the sand bars.  We continued on a very short way in the remaining water, but shortly got out and walked Dylan in the dingy in.  There were so many sand dollars on the exposed sand.   We must have seen about 50. It was neat to see them all.  Oh, and I saw the best shell on this trip.  Unfortunately, it had an inhabitant.    Although we were having a great time exploring the low tide flats, we needed to head back as we had one more stop on our list - Rocky Dundas.  This is a cave that you can enter at low tide and explore the stalactites.  We were there earlier in the trip but it was too rough at the time and we couldn't have gotten in.  We anchored just outside the caves and Kerry and Connor jumped in to do a bit of recon.  All was well.  They had a nice exploration and then came back to give me a chance.  It was quite neat as you can stand up on the inside as the waves crash around you.  Outside the cave there was an outstanding Staghorn coral as well, which Connor was spouting facts on this coral and others he saw in the cave. It's great to see so much hands on learning.   It was a little too rough for Dylan in the dinghy unfortunately.  He hit all the great spots we do and we do our best to make sure that he experiences all that we do.  So, after that it felt like we had anchored for the last time but we up anchored and headed towards Cambridge
Cay.  We had been told a lot of nice things and so we finally ended our day there.  At Cambridge there is another mooring field that is run by exuma Land and Sea Park.  There is a host boat that stays for a couple of weeks to collect mooring fees from boats.  In return, their mooring is free and they get to enjoy the beauty of the park.  the eagle rays were supposed to do a lot of jumping out of the water (this is done, to remove parasites from themselves).  I saw one earlier in the day and Kerry heard a giant splash - but no actual sightings.  One of the main attractions, why we came to this area was the sharks.  As the sun was setting dark shadows started to appear under our boat.  I stuck the camera in the water to have a look.  Connor believed that they were lemon sharks and black tipped reef sharks.  We must have watched the sharks under our boat for a couple of hours.  It was so thrilling and fascinating to watch them all swim. What a busy day!
  
  






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